


akasaka sad

by swimminginthemirror



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25476781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimminginthemirror/pseuds/swimminginthemirror
Summary: He drags himself back under his covers after washing his hands, closing his eyes. Maybe if he tries hard enough, it’ll all go away.Maybe if he tries enough, he’ll stop seeing Hyunjin’s smile imprinted on the underside of his eyelids even as thorny, gnarled roots creep their way around his lungs.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Yang Jeongin | I.N
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	akasaka sad

He holds a ring of pink camellias in his shaking hands, each petal dipped with slowly dripping blood.

They’re pretty in a way, soft and bright. Nothing like the twisted roots they came from, the thorny stems Jeongin can feel tearing up his insides. He coughs, and more pink petals flutter out his blood-stained lips, falling onto his lap.

Next to him, Felix turns over his sleep, and Jeongin hurriedly collects the flowers in his hands, wiping blood from his mouth as he treads lightly to the bathroom. 

He doesn’t think anyone was awoken by his coughing fit, but he still closes the door behind him as he goes. The petals fall from his hands into the bin, a bright spot of colour among the other rubbish. As an afterthought, he winds a stretch of toilet roll round his hand and fixes layers on top of the camellias, to hide them from sight.

Jeongin’s not sure if he’s entirely succeeded, but his head is pounding bright spots into his vision, and his hands and mouth are covered in dried blood- if he doesn’t collapse into bed now he thinks he might faint onto the sink. 

He drags himself back under his covers after washing his hands, closing his eyes. Maybe if he tries hard enough, it’ll all go away.

Maybe if he tries enough, he’ll stop seeing Hyunjin’s smile imprinted on the underside of his eyelids even as thorny, gnarled roots creep their way around his lungs.

#

Hanahaki disease they called it, a disease born from unrequited love.

Flowers, beautiful flowers and thorns wrapping their way around your insides and crawling up your throat, slowly but surely suffocating you. It manifests in the coughing of petals to begin, and then the upheaval of whole flowers and thorny stems and blood everywhere.

Jeongin remembers a classmate they used to whisper about, the girl in 2-B who would hide in the bathroom to cough up delicate red carnations. She made it until Valentine's Day before she collapsed on the stairs, a thin trickle of blood on her lips and a fully formed carnation extending out her mouth.

He'd seen the effects of Hanahaki before, on the floors of bars on valentine's Day lined with a thin layer of vomit and petals, in the petals fluttering out of people's mouths as they walked down the street.

But he'd never seen it like this, the uncompromising reality of the disease. Her eyes are glazed over, unseeing, and her face is garishly pale next to the vibrant colour of the carnations in her mouth. 

"How tragic," people around him whisper as teachers begin to move the body away, "how disgustingly tragic to love someone into death like that."

There's a cure for Hanahaki, after all.

A simple surgery to remove the flowers, to remove the roots embedded in your lungs forever. But with the flowers, however, went the love for the person who could not love you back.

The teachers begin to shoo away the crowd that's gathered, lifting the girl gently up. Jeongin remains, staring at the petals littering the stairs and wonders how viciously you would have to want to keep a hold of your love, how possessive you must be of that feeling in order to die rather than lose it.

Her body is carried down the stairs, and Jeongin keeps her unseeing gaze until she falls out of sight.

#

He'd looked up the meaning of the flowers once, oddly enamoured with the nameless garden growing in his lungs.

It took a while to find them, but he eventually recognised the picture on the screen as the flowers he'd been spewing for the past week. Camellias, the website had labelled them as, pink camellias.

"Longing." Jeongin read out from the screen, lips quirked in a wry smile. 

The meaning of the flowers fit, he'd thought a week later, watching Hyunjin dance in the steamed mirrors of the dance studio.

His body flowed like water as he moved, eyes focused solely on the mirror in front of him with fierce concentration. 

He hits every beat precisely, floating through the rest of the steps until the song ends. When the last note fades away, he pushes his fringe back from his forehead and collapses in a sweaty heap next to Jeongin.

"How was that?" He asks, grinning up at Jeongin.

Jeongin pretends to mull over it, laughing when Hyunjin playfully punches his arm in retribution. "It was great," he answers honestly, feeling petals prickle at the back of his throat at Hyunjin's answering beaming smile.

"I know right? Minho's always come out with good choreographies but I really like this one-"

Hyunjin chatters excitedly about the dance with exaggerated arm movements and sound effects to emphasise just how cool he thinks certain movements are and Jeongin… Jeongin sits next to him.

Smiling, and watching, and nodding. 

Longing.

Hyunjin is pressed up against him, arms and feet tangled together and errant strands of his hair tickling Jeongin's cheek. He sprays spittle when he talks, prompting Jeongin to wrinkle his nose and make a show of moving away.

It's nice and easy.

Jeongin knows he could remove this feeling if he wanted to, if he wanted to live. But he has longing running up and down his body with thorny vines and delicate petals, and the feeling is so addicting that he can't let go.

He doesn't want to live in a world where his cheeks don't warm at Hyunjin's grin or his heart doesn't speed up when they link hands.

Really, he thinks he just loves being in love. And the feeling of being in love with Hyunjin is incomparable.

#

He gets caught, eventually.

It's not Chan, who keeps a watchful eye over the members, or Seungmin who is quietly observant of his surroundings- but it's Jisung.

It's Jisung who finds out, shaking him awake from his nap on the dorm room sofa with frantic motions.

Jeongin sits up, and immediately feels the faint weight of several small objects sliding off his chest. He looks down, and realises that all around his feet and up the sofa petals and half-formed camellias litter the area, tinged with the dark shade of blood and vomit.

Jisung looks at him fearfully, eyes shining. "What is this?" He asks.

"Hanahaki." Jeongin answers softly. "A manifestation of unrequited love."

"No I-" his voice is shaking, "I know what it is, I just. How long? How long has this been happening?"

Jeongin opens his mouth to answer, but a loud screech suddenly cuts through the air and Jisung's phone shivers on the table.

He checks the incoming message, eyes tearing away from the screen to look at Jeongin every other second as if he thought he was about to get up and run away.

"Minho texted to say they'll be arriving back at the dorm in ten minutes." Jisung relays, placing the phone back on the table.

Jeongin is seized with panic, staring around at the threads of fauna winding their way across the sofa and floor. "Help," he pleads beseechingly, "please help me clean this up before they get back. I'll tell you everything after, I promise."

"Wouldn't it be better if they know? They can help!" Jisung argues, determinedly avoiding looking at the piles of petals Jeongin is hastily scooping up.

"No!" Jeongin raises his voice, and Jisung steps back, startled. "No, I mean, not yet. I'll tell them later," he promises, quieter

Jisung purses his lips, holding Jeongin's gaze.

There's a sigh, and then a second pair of hands joins Jeongin's in rounding up the stray flowers.

#

He tells Jisung everything later, as promised.

"It's Hyunjin," he admits, sitting cross-legged opposite the other boy. 

Jisung doesn't seem surprised, only nodding.

"He doesn't know, does he?"

"No. He'd drive himself crazy feeling guilty about it, I'm not putting that on him." He says, fiddling with the strings of his hoodie.

"But you're putting it on yourself?" Jisung pushes, raising an eyebrow.

Jeongin shrugs. "I've learned to embrace it. Better him than me." He says, throwing the empty soda can in his grip into the bin with a flick. It hits the bottom with a hollow, metallic sound.

"I trust you Jeongin, but…" Jisung turns to look at him, facing him squarely. “If you die,” he says, voice uncharacteristically quiet, “I’ll never forgive you.”

Jeongin's eyes widen, but Jisung has already turned away, staring out the window at the orange-brushed sky.

#

'Try and avoid Hyunjin as much as possible," Jisung had advised, but that was proving harder than he'd initially thought.

Jeongin had tried, he'd really tried to stay away from Hyunjin, but even if he wasn't there physically, some figment or remnant of him still existed at all times in Jeongin's body and brain.

He doesn't shop with Hyunjin for Christmas presents, but still he thinks of the other boy as he admires a pair of shoes he knows he'd like, or a scarf that he thinks would go well with Hyunjin's skin tone.

Jeongin watches couples pass him by with linked hands, and wonders about how Hyunjin's hands would fit in his, tracing his knuckles and thinking, _this is where his fingers would fit, and curl around mine._

#

Jeongin brings his camera up and points it at Hyunjin, reaching for the shutter and pressing down. 

Hyunjin starts. "Did you just take a picture of me? I should've known you were up to something when you insisted on taking it out of the dorms."

"I'm doing a project for school," Jeongin explains, humming appreciatively as the picture comes through on the screen.

He lines the camera up again and Hyunjin tries to duck out of view, but is caught flailing helplessly by the shot.

Jeongin beams as he brings the camera back down again. “It’s on beautiful things,” he says, and winds the camera up for a new shot.

Hyunjin tilts his head in confusion. "I'm not really sure I fit the criteria for that. Don't they usually want pictures of nature and things like that when they say beautiful?"

Laughter bubbles up in his throat. "Hyunjin," he says as he looks at him through the camera lens, "you are the criteria for beautiful."

_Snap!_

#

Chan corners him in the bathroom.

"You're in love with Hyunjin," he says. 

It's not phrased as a question.

Jeongin smiles wryly, clearing away his face products from the sink as he prepares to leave. "Are you asking me or are you telling me? Because believe me hyung, I definitely know."

"You should tell him."

Jeongin laughs, a harsh, brittle sound that surprises him as it tears its way out his throat. "What's the point? It's not as if he's going to say it back."

"The point is that you're hurting yourself," Chan pleads earnestly, leaning forward, "you can't keep going like this."

Jeongin meets Chan's gaze. "I'd rather hurt myself than risk hurting him," he states, with a tone of finality.

When he brushes past Chan to leave the bathroom, he doesn't try and stop him.

Later, in the comfort of his dorm room he sits down on his bed, resting his head back with a sigh.

He slides his hands into his pockets, starting when his fingers graze the clean cut edges of a card. He pulls it out of his pockets, inspecting it carefully.

It's a business card, plain but professional with the name of a clinic embossed on the front. He turns it over, and notes that one of their professed specialities is managing and treating respiratory diseases.

How serendipitous he thinks, lips curling wryly.

Chan must have slipped it in as he was leaving, he figures, pocketing the card again. Jeongin suppresses a smile at the thought, touched by Chan's silent support.

#

Hyunjin finds out eventually, of course.

There's only so many times Jeongin can fake going to the bathroom in an hour, so as they laze together in his dorm room he coughs, and lets the half-formed camellia in his mouth fall out.

Hyunjin immediately stands up, eyes comically wide. "Oh my god," he says, and then, as Jeongin wheezes again and more camellias topple out, "oh my god," he repeats, dropping the manga in his grip.

Jeongin holds the camellias in his palms for a second, gently stroking the soft edges of the petals. He looks up at Hyunjin, who is still staring at him uncomprehendingly, so he crumples the flower in his fist and bins it.

"Sorry," he offers quietly, unsure of what else to say.

Hyunjin shakes his head, seemingly coming out of his stupor. "No, don't apologize, I just… don't know what to say." 

He digs out a tissue from the recesses of his pockets and hands it to Jeongin, who uses it to wipe the left-over petals sticking to his lips.

"It's fine, you don't need to say anything," Jeongin says, "I'm dealing with it just fine."

Hyunjin frowns, clearly unconvinced.

He wants to ask who, Jeongin can tell from the shifting of his eyes as he considers the flowers dumped unceremoniously in the bin. Who could Jeongin possibly love this much?

It's a taboo, of sorts, to ask about the cause of one's Hanahaki.

But Hyunjin has never had time for faux politeness or stigmas, so he asks, of course.

Jeongin doesn't answer.

He's not going to put that burden on Hyunjin. He's not going to punish him for being easy to love.

Hyunjin doesn't push him on it, but as they sit together for the rest of the evening he holds Jeongin close, tugging him ever-closer to his own body as if he'd never let go.

The close proximity makes the petals in his throat shiver, but he swallows them down mercilessly, burrowing in closer to Hyunjin's warm hold.

#

Jisung's eyes are disappointed as Jeongin treks back into their dorm room in the early morning, hoodie stained with blood and faint traces of vomit.

"You know if you go near him, it'll only get worse," Jisung reprimands softly as Jeongin collapses onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"I know," Jeongin acknowledges, the words scratchy in his throat. "But he makes it so easy."

Jisung sighs, dropping the point for the time being.

He leans over to his desk, fishing something out from his stationary holder. "So I found this card," Jisung states, holding it up to Jeongin.

Jeongin sits up on his elbows, leaning forward to look at the card. Immediately he recognises it as the business card for the clinic that Chan had given him.

"I think it could be useful," Jisung continues, voice brightening as he reads the back of it. "Should we call up and make an appointment soon?"

Jeongin hesitates, but when he sees Jisung's eyes narrow he hastily promises to call up, taking the card from his hands and placing it in the pocket of his sweatpants

Truthfully, he has no intention of contacting the clinic, but under Jisung's watchful gaze it seems that it might not be up to him after all.

He plays with the card in his pocket, turning it over and over under his fingers until it eventually folds inwards under his grip.

#

Jeongin eventually succumbs to Jisung's nudges, and calls the number on the sleek business card in his desk drawer.

The doctor is a young, pretty looking lady called Dr Jung, he discovers when they meet for his first appointment. She makes small talk with him as she washes her hands, drying them off and settling down into her chair.

She asks about his symptoms, about how he's coping with the disease. He answers in short, stilted sentences, unsure how open he's meant to be with this stranger after hiding it for months.

"Do you feel comfortable disclosing the identity of the subject of your Hanahaki?" Dr Jung asks, looking up at him.

"No." He responds shortly, and she nods and leaves it at that.

"That's fine, we'll just go through some basic checks today then and see how far the flowers have progressed." 

She rolls her chair up near him, and fixes the stethoscope hanging around her neck to his chest. The metal is cold where it touches his skin as she instructs him to breathe in and out slowly.

The action tickles his lungs, and petals fall from his lips as he barks out a cough.

He goes to apologize, but Dr Jung waves him away, picking up the petals with her gloved hands.

"Camellias," she recognises, turning the petals delicately around to face the light, "do you know their meaning?"

"Do you?"

She hums, placing the camellias into a bowl on her desk. "Longing, right?"

Jeongin smiles thinly. "Right."

He can see the poorly-concealed pity in her eyes as she looks up at him, hands clasped together. 

"The disease isn't that far gone. We can arrange an appointment for the removal as early as next week, if you'd like." She says earnestly.

She's already reaching for an appointment card on her desk, clearly expecting him to go through with the procedure. 

"I don't want it next week." Jeongin interrupts.

Dr Jung blinks, but quickly rights herself. "That's fine, we also have later slots available-"

"I don't want it," he hesitates, "at least not yet."

She purses her lips, and her pen stops scribbling on the appointment card. "Okay," she says, "whenever you're ready."

He leaves the office after some more tests, promising to check back in after a week. Her eyes are weary as she watches him go, and he wonders how many patients she's seen and had to watch slowly die by following the same path as him.

The lifts are broken so he takes the stairs all the way down, thorns pressing deeper into his lungs with every jolting step.

#

He'd asked once, why Hyunjin had never had a relationship despite the sizable trainee population that was in love with him.

Hyunjin wrinkled his nose as Jeongin asked, waving his coke can in the air as if to bat away the question. "There's no point really. I'm here for music and music only." 

"But surely you can fit a relationship alongside that too," Jeongin persisted, head lolling back over the edge of his deck chair.

He shrugged, flicking a bead of condensation off the can. "I guess I'm just not really a relationship type person," he admitted, sipping at his drink.

Hyunjin choked suddenly, falling and cowering behind his deckchair as a truly giant bee hovered menacingly over him. Jeongin peered over at the cry, and began cackling in glee at the sight of the other boy quivering before the bee.

Their previous conversation was quickly forgotten as they attempted to ward the bee away, up in arms with their deck chairs as they swung futilely at it. (They never actually succeeded- Chan had to come out and drag them back inside because of noise complaints, and they stayed giggling about it with each other until the early hours of the morning).

Jeongin doesn't think about the incident until much later, when he leans over the toilet, violently coughing up delicate pink petals for the first time.

He watches the detritus swirl in the toilet bowl as he pushes down the lever to flush with a firm hand. 

_Not a relationship kind of guy._

He smiles wryly, spitting blood into the sink as he makes his way out.

#

"How are you feeling about it today? A patient just cancelled, so we can have the procedure as early as tomorrow, if you want."

"I-," Jeongin hesitates, gripping the scratchy underside of the chair hard with his fingers. "No thank you. Not yet."

Dr Jung smiles sadly, nodding. "Of course. Whenever you're ready."

Hyunjin ambushes him upon his return from the clinic, whining that they haven't been spending enough time together recently.

He attempts to slip away, but Hyunjin is insistent and drags him to the convenience store with him. "You're so skinny recently," he teases, poking Jeongin's arm. There's an undercurrent of genuine concern there that Jeongin pretends not to pick up on. "You should be thanking me for taking you out for food so you can put some meat on your bones."

Jeongin raises his eyebrows, looking around the dimly lit, cramped aisles. "This isn't exactly fine-dining."

Hyunjin laughs, sliding two popsicle boxes out of the freezer. "I don't know what you're talking about, this is a five star Michelin experience!"

Jeongin sticks his tongue out at him, squeaking in surprise as Hyunjin feigns throwing one of the boxes at him.

Hyunjin grins again, instead moving forward and slinging his arm around Jeongin as they traipse towards the register. The heat of his body warms Jeongin through, and he subconsciously leans into the embrace.

He doesn't think he'll ever be ready.

#

"Happy birthday!" yells Hyunjin, startling Jeongin into awareness just before his bedroom door snaps open.

Jeongin sits up in bed in time to see Hyunjin carefully walk into his room with a breakfast tray and a wide grin. 

"What's all this?" Jeongin asks, laughing. Hyunjin carefully deposits the tray onto his lap, removing the foil from the food.

"I thought the birthday boy deserved something special today, and what's more special than birthday in bed?" He leans closer, and Jeongin's breath hitches. "Also, I persuaded manager hyung to give us an extra thirty minutes before the first schedule to give you extra time to eat." Hyunjin winks conspiratorially, leaning back with a grin.

"Thanks," Jeongin smiles warmly, shifting forward to bring the tray closer.

He blows on the food, taking a bite as Hyunjin watches nervously, rubbing the tip of his nose as he awaits Jeongin's feedback.

Breakfast turns out to be slightly burned scrambled eggs, a very burned piece of toast, and lumpy porridge.

Jeongin eagerly forces it down and praises Hyunjin, who goes pink with pleasure.

"It's great," he lies, revelling in Hyunjin's glee. He opens his mouth to continue, but chokes, rubbery pieces of egg and flowers spitting out his mouth as he coughs, desperately grabbing for a tissue from his drawers.

Jeongin looks up, wiping his mouth with the tissue. Hyunjin is turned away, eyes red. "Do you want to try some?" He asks, trying to return the mood, but Hyunjin just shakes his head minutely.

"It's okay, you enjoy it. I should go," he says shortly, ruffling Jeongin's hair as he leaves.

Jeongin is left alone in the room, tissue clutched in his right hand, the breakfast tray still full of food leaning perilously. He looks at the assortment of food, and stands up with the tray in hand.

He throws it all in the bin, casting the breakfast tray across the room with a loud clatter.

#

He tells Dr Jung about Hyunjin some appointments later.

He brings out an old, crinkled picture of the two of them from his wallet, passing it over to her. They're both laughing in the picture, Hyunjin with his head thrown back and shoulders relaxed, and Jeongin grinning, looking up at him.

"You really love him," she comments, thumbing the creases of Jeongin's face in the picture, the affection in his gaze all too prominent.

"Yeah," he admits, for lack of anything else to say.

She looks up at him carefully, handing the picture back to him. "Do you think he loves you too?" 

Jeongin snorts. "No. Well not in the romantic way at least. Not in the right way."

Dr Jung hums, considering this as she scribbles something down on her clipboard.

There's a lull as she writes, and then, "Does there have to be a right way? Isn't that kind of love beautiful too?"

He doesn't answer, but later when he thinks about it, he's not sure that the kind of love infesting and destroying his body is all that beautiful either.

#

It comes to a head some days later.

He could fill a vase up with these, Jeongin thinks absently as he lifts up fully formed camellias from the floor.

The delicate pink colour of the petals is soaked through with blood, the liquid permeating the flowers right down to the stem where it coalesces at the bottom in a steady drip.

This is the last stage.

The final stage of Hanahaki.

Jeongin sighs, knees clicking as he hauls himself to his feet. Dr Jung's words ring in his head as he moves, approaching Hyunjin who stands at the end of the corridor, idly checking his phone.

_Isn't that kind of love beautiful too?_

Hyunjin looks up at the sound of his footsteps, eyes crinkling into a half-moon smile as he puts his phone away.

Jeongin doesn't want to waste any time.

"Do you love me?" He asks, stepping forward and holding himself up by tangling his hands in Hyunjin's hoodie.

Hyunjin tilts his head, confused. "Of course," he admits simply.

"No, I-" Jeongin laughs breathlessly, "I mean, do you _love_ me." 

He can tell by Hyunjin's expression that he still doesn't really understand. "Of course, Jeongin."

His eyes are clear and shining with affection as he talks. He really does love him.

Of course.

But just in the wrong way. Or maybe Jeongin loves him in the wrong way, in the sick way of pain and blood and twisted yearning. 

"Okay," he smiles dizzily, "of course."

Jeongin looks up at Hyunjin, releasing his hoodie from the death-grip of his hands. "That's fine. Thanks, hyung."

He feels a lump the size of a baseball rise in his throat. Stuff it down, close the lid, shut the curtain so Hyunjin won't see the desolation that sticks to his ribs and clenches around his lungs.

Hyunjin raises his eyebrows in puzzlement, hands reaching out to Jeongin, but he's already walking away.

#

His hands are shaking as he dials the number for the clinic, and Jisung and Chan each place a calming hand on his shoulders.

"Hello?" Dr Jung's voice comes through the phone.

Jeongin takes in a deep breath, feeling the camellias within him shift with the movement.

"I'm ready," he says, and he can feel the answering smile from the other end of the line.

#

Jeongin wakes up to the white of the hospital ceiling, and an aching numbness in his chest.

He struggles to sit up, waiting for the inevitable cough as he exerts himself, but it never comes.

Jisung rushes to hand him the glass of water sitting on the bedside table, and he eagerly gulps it down.

"How are you feeling?" Jisung asks, lips twitching as if trying to suppress a grin. His happiness is evident though, radiating from his body.

"Fine," Jeongin replies, and is surprised when he realises it's actually true.

The ever-present itch in his throat is gone, and his breaths are no longer wheezing rattles. 

Jisung grins widely, seemingly giving up on hiding his excitement. "You have no idea how great it is to see you looking healthier again." He gushes, bouncing in his seat. "Dr Jung showed us an X-ray of your lungs before and after- everything's been cleared out of there now."

Jeongin smiles faintly, making a note to get some sort of present for Dr Jung after he was released. "Us? So the other members know too?" He asks.

"Yeah," Jisung relays sheepishly, scratching the back of his head, "Felix heard Chan and I discussing the procedure and soon the entire group knew. I think some of them suspected anyway, but they're all out there now, waiting for you."

"But you didn't tell them who-"

"No," he answers shortly, "that's your secret to keep."

Jeongin smiles again, taking Jisung's hands his own. "Thank you," he says, "for helping me through this."

Jisung beams, opening his mouth to reply, but the door bursts open as Changbin and Minho stumble through. Changbin makes eye contact with Jeongin, then turns back and hollers "He's awake!"

Then, a stampede emerges through the doors, all 6 boys skidding in and immediately heading for Jeongin.

After a brief moment of chaos, Chan sends the rest of them out and orders them to back one by one so they don't overwhelm Jeongin.

Chan sits down by the bed, looking at Jeongin quietly. "Feeling better?" He asks.

"Much."

"That's good," he says, eyes shining slightly as he turns towards the light, "that's really good."

Jeongin places a hand on Chan's, and they sit there for a moment as the leader wipes his eyes with a tissue from his pocket.

"Hyunjin is demanding to visit you next," he says, crumpling up the tissue. "Is that okay, or should I tell him to wait?"

"No," Jeongin says, shaking his head, "I want to see him."

The phrasing of his answer has Chan pausing, clearly worried that somehow the procedure hadn't been enough, that his feelings had somehow still remained.

He opens the door anyway to call Hyunjin in, trusting Jeongin and leaving it in his hands.

Hyunjin slips in, holding a flower bouquet between clasped hands.

Jeongin raises his eyebrows and starts laughing at the gift, and a flustered Hyunjin lightly smacks his arm with the flowers.

"Don't laugh at me! I'm aware this isn't the most… appropriate thing right now, but I thought it would be a nice sentiment." He stretches the bouquet out, letting Jeongin feel the edges of the flowers.

"Daffodils," Jeongin recognises, looking up at Hyunjin. "Any particular reason?"

Hyunjin rocks back on the balls of his feet. "Apparently they represent new beginnings. I thought it was fitting, that you could look at them on your bedside table as you recover and remember that the slate is wiped clean. What do you think?" He asks, chewing nervously on his lower lip.

Jeongin looks at Hyunjin, taking in the creases in the corner of his eyes and the pink of his smile as his lips tug up. His eyes are brimming with affection, shining in the harsh light of the hospital.

Yet, the only thought that crosses Jeongin's mind as he registers this is a faint _'pretty'_.

He thinks Hyunjin's pretty, but when he leans forward to place a daffodil into Jeongin's hands, his heart doesn't start stammering, his neck doesn't heat up.

He considers the daffodil in his grip, twirling it around. "I like that idea," Jeongin decides.

He takes a deep breath- in and out, and realises that he can finally breathe.


End file.
